BAGHDAD, Iraq – Three Sunni Arab groups joined forces Wednesday to field candidates in December’s elections provided for under the newly ratified constitution which many Sunnis opposed. But a group of hard-line Sunni clerics denounced the constitution and said they will not join the political process.
Those contradictory statements signaled confusion within the minority Sunni Arab community, which forms the core of the insurgency, over how to go forward after it failed to block ratification of the new constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum.
Leaders of the three Sunni groups – the General Conference for the People of Iraq, the Iraqi Islamic Party and the Iraqi National Dialogue – announced they would field a joint slate of candidates in the Dec. 15 balloting and work together in the new parliament to promote Sunni interests.
“This alliance aims to provide Iraqis with a national slate for the elections,” said Ayad al-Samarraie, a senior official of the Iraqi Islamic Party.
He said the largely Sunni alliance will include some Shiites in southern provinces and that its agenda will include a call for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Iraqi – if progress can be made in building national institutions.
“The next elections are important because they will produce a balanced National Assembly,” he said. “Iraqis will have various options to choose from, and this enriches democracy in Iraq.”
Despite the Sunni groups’ announcement, an influential group of hardline Sunni Arab clerics, the Association of Muslim Scholars, declared Wednesday that it would not join the political process and denounced the constitution. The association is believed to have links to some insurgent groups and was at the forefront of the January boycott.
“The whole project was American,” association spokesman Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi said of the constitution. “We already declared that the constitution will only benefit the occupation and the other forces who collaborated.”
In other developments, the U.S. military said that an American warplane struck a suspected insurgent safe house near the Syrian border Wednesday and may have killed a senior al-Qaida in Iraq figure who assisted in smuggling Syrian and Saudi fighters into Iraq.
Without giving details, the military said intelligence sources indicated the figure, identified only as Abu Dua, was inside the house but his body has not been recovered. It added that Abu Dua had also set up religious courts to try Iraqis charged with supporting the Iraqi government and coalition forces.
The Iraqi government said another al-Qaida leader who took part in at least three videotaped beheadings of Iraqis was killed in Mosul on Sunday. Nashwan Mijhim Muslet, also known as Abu Tayir and Abu Zaid, was a senior al-Qaida member in Mosul wanted for attacks against U.S.-led coalition troops and Iraqi security forces.
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